Page 97 of The Reluctant Viking

Ruby held tightly to Thork’s and Selik’s arms, not wanting to get lost in the mob. Eirik had been sent off with two servants to find his young uncle Haakon.

There were no wood trenchers at this banquet. Instead, matching ivory-handled gold and silver spoons and knives lay at each place setting, flanking intricately wrought sterling platters shared by each couple.

Enormous subleties, towers of pastries in the shape of castles, complete with battlements and arrow-slitted windows, garnished with nuts and almond paste and topped with sugar knights, were placed on the high table and several lower ones, as well. Who would ever dare to eat them and mar the magnificent culinary works of art? As if reading her mind. Thork reached over and popped a whole knight in his mouth, then winked at her.

Ruby shook her head in disgust and turned to Selik at her other side, but he was engrossed in the daughter of a Saxon ealdorman beside him. When he finally turned to Ruby, he raised his wine cup in toast and said in a low voice, “I think I may get lucky tonight. What think you?” He jiggled his eyebrows for emphasis.

Ruby laughed and looked around the huge hall with its many beautiful women, a large number of whom had already noticed the handsome Viking with the dancing eyes. “The odds are in your favor,” she remarked.

Then Selik leaned in front of her to address Thork. “Think you, friend, that you will get lucky tonight?”

“I think you will be lucky if I do not slit your loose tongue,” Thork said as he sipped his wine.

“Ah!” Selik persisted. “The man dost refuse to answer my question. Methinks he will not be lucky.”

Thork laughed good-naturedly at his friend’s baiting. “Methinks there is naught of luck in it at all, but expertise, which you must lack, or you would not make such an issue of it.”

Selik pretended mock offense. “You wound me with your words.” Then he turned once again to the maid on his other side.

Thork and Ruby laughed at Selik’s humor. Then Ruby jumped when Thork squeezed her thigh under the table.

“Stop that.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Oh! If you wish,” he said too quickly, then twined the fingers of her right hand with his left and proceeded to torture her by making slow, sensuous circles in her palm with his thumb, all the time looking toward the dais as if he didn’t know damned well what effect he had on her.

Ruby tried to pull her hand away, but Thork held her firm and whispered in her ear, “Nay, do not pull away from me or I swear I will draw circles on a part of your body that will draw gasps from the women around us and cheers of encouragement from all the men, even the virgin king.

Ruby blushed at his risqué comment and slapped his hand away. Then she asked, “A virgin king?”

“’Tis rumored Athelstan has taken a vow of celibacy and will groom his young atheling half-brothers for the throne. Since he is illegitimate and they are marriage-born, he wants to preserve the royal blood lines.”

“Do you believe that?” Ruby was skeptical that such a handsome, virile man would remain celibate.

“Who knows?” Thork shrugged, then grinned. “Mayhap he would be interested in some of your birth control information. He could achieve his goals without the gelding—so to speak.”

Ruby and Thork shared the same platter and cup of wine throughout the sumptuous feast, far grander than any Viking fare. The food and drink flowed endlessly.

“So, how many multiple orgasms did you have in one night with that fantasy husband of yours?” Thork asked suddenly in one of the conversation’s lulls, showing Ruby exactly where his mind was. She coughed on the wine she’d been drinking, and he clapped her on the back jovially.

“That many, huh?”

“How could you ask such a thing?” she whispered, profoundly embarrassed that someone might have overheard.

“What? You are the one who bragged—”

“I never bragged. I merely told Byrnhil—”

Ruby never got a chance to finish as the king and all his party on the dais stood, announcing he was about to receive the gifts and messages from all the royal emissaries present, after which the entertainment would begin.

As an indication of the new king’s standing, several royal princes sent fine gifts, hoping for one of Athelstan’s sisters in marriage. His cousin Adelolf, Count of Boulogne, who represented the Capetian ruler Hugh, a Frankish duke, sought his sister Eadhild. Henry the Fowler, Saxon king of the Germans, wanted Athelstan’s sister Edith for his son Otto. Conrad the Peaceable, King of Burgundy, would take any sister he could get. Athelstan’s sister Eadgifu had already married Charles the Simple, the Frankish king, six years before.

Among the priceless gifts they brought were the Holy Lance of Charlemagne, allegedly the one used by the Roman centurion to pierce the side of Christ. Also, the sword of Constantine the Great with a nail from the True Cross in its hilt, and a crown of thorns set in crystal, not to mention precious gems the size of hen’s eggs, magnificent horses, and rare perfumes.

“It seems Sigtrygg should be honored by Athelstan’s proposal to marry his sister if such distinguished men clamor for his family ties,” Ruby whispered to Thork.